I have run two kickstarter campaigns, both have successfully funded with one still ongoing. Something I noticed both times running campaigns: As it got closer to the end of the campaign, a lot of backers started cancelling their pledge. Now, we have 95 backers total, so I could understand if 5-10 backed out, that would seem normal to me.

But the problem is, we've had 130 backers total, and of those, only 95 are still currently still pledged with 6 days to go. I don't think it's normal for 35 backers to drop out when you have had so few to begin with. That's more than 25% of all backers have cancelled. It's hit especially hard in the past week, with 8 backers canceling. Even though the project is 105% funded with 6 days to go, I'm a little worried more backers are going to cancel and make us miss our goal. It's extremely frustrating, especially since backers are not communicating before they cancel, so we have no idea why.

Is this normal? What has been your experience with backers cancelling their pledges? How can you prevent this from happening?

I don't know the rates off the top of my head, but this definitely concerned me on my prior projects. I remember my first project there was a lot of drop-off at the end (like in your case) and my recent project it was more of a consistent daily rate.

The reason you're likely seeing a spike is because with a week to go, people are making the final decision to officially back or not. Remember, they haven't been officially charged yet, so there wasn't really any risk in backing it early on - even with a commitment as flimsy as "yea, I might want that."

Just do what you've been doing by keeping a close eye on it. Expect it. Keep promoting. Try to keep making further progress despite the cancellations.